1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to an apparatus for preventing an animal from barking and method of controlling the apparatus, and, more particularly, to an apparatus for preventing an animal from barking and method of controlling the apparatus, which can sense barking actions using both a sound sensor and a vibration sensor to prevent an animal from barking, can automatically control the intensities of sound, ultrasonic or low-frequency stimulations according to the time at which an animal barks, and can automatically control the operating time of the function of preventing an animal from barking.
2. Description of the Related Art
Modern people who live near neighbors must pay attention to their pets so as to prevent the pets from troubling their neighbors when they want to keep pets in apartment houses or cities in which people live close to their neighbors.
However, a pet's barking is transferred to neighbors through some space without being blocked, so that friction with neighbors may result. In order to solve this problem, various methods such as that of prescribing related actions as laws or that of prohibiting pets from barking by training them have been considered so as to prevent the pets from making noise.
In order to suppress the barking of pets, various technologies have been developed. A representative one of these technologies is a bark control system, which senses the bark of an animal, provides a warning to the animal in the form of a sound or vibration, and applies an electrical stimulation when the animal continues to bark even if the warning is provided. This system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,233.
As shown in FIG. 1, such a conventional bark control system includes a vibration sensor 3 attached to the collar 2 of a pet dog 1 and configured to sense a vibration occurring on the neck of the pet dog, a microphone 4 for sampling surrounding sound, amplifiers 5 and for amplifying the power of the vibration sensor 3 and the microphone 4, a central processing unit 7 for converting signals sampled by the microphone 4 into vectors, comparing the vectors with the vectors of sample bark signals previously stored in memory 8 in relation to whether the vectors correspond to the previously stored vectors, and outputting a bark control signal when the vectors correspond to the previously stored vectors, and a stimulation output device 9 for receiving the bark control signal from the central processing unit 7 and outputting a stimulation.
The conventional bark control system is problematic in that, since the microphone is operated by sensing a vibration occurring on the neck of an animal, the system is operated only when the vibration sensor accurately comes into contact with the vocal cords of the animal. Further, the system is also problematic in that, when the collar equipped with the vibration sensor is scratched or stimulated, the vibration sensor is operated, so that the microphone is operated, thus resulting in unnecessary power consumption.
Further, such a conventional bark control system is disadvantageous in that the period and intensity of stimulation applied to an animal are uniform, thus causing stress to the animal, and in that, when the stimulation is continuously applied, a threshold phenomenon occurs, thus deteriorating the efficiency of the bark control system and making it difficult to control the animal.